Forever is a Long Time
by Rugsrat
Summary: What really happened during the twenty years of Starfire's abscence in How Long is Forever? Raven has broken, Beastboy is more neurotic than Woody Allen, Cy needs fixing, and Robin is more brooding than Batman. Why? Chapter 2 up.
1. Chapter 1 Prologue

**Author's note**: this is the first story that I have written for I wrote this story in particular because the other stories about what happened in the 20 years since Starfire's (during _How Long is Forever)_ leaving just didn't seem… realistic, and I'm sorry if the comment offends the authors of these fics, but that's how I feel. I you feel the same way about mine, please feel free to beat me over the head with various rotten vegetables for my hypocrisy. All I ask is that if you flame, be creative, no "No! These 2 people belong together, not them!" The same goes for just reviews, please tell me what I can do to get better, or what I'm doing right, please don't just say, "I love this story!" and leave it at that. (On second thought, you can just tell me it's good, but constructive criticism would be nice, thanks)

Thank you for your time and now, on with this fic!

Chapter 1

Robin hadn't really noticed Starfire earlier that day; he had been far too busy being angry with everyone else. What had stated it was the argument that Beast Boy, the insufferable comedian, and Raven, the reclusive psychic. It was stupid really, Beast Boy was going to trim his toenails, and Raven felt it was rude to do that in the _living room_ of all places.

_"Dude! Raven, give 'em back, I need those!" Raven merely sat on the couch, the clippers hanging in mid-air next to her head, reading her book._

_"Give them back so you can clip your toenails in here, I don't think so."_

Then when Beast Boy and Cyborg had started arguing over the video game, Robin had almost had it, he couldn't hear the song that he had been trying to listen to, and the more he turned the music up, the more the argument escalated. It got so loud that he had his stereo on the highest volume but almost couldn't hear the music over the argument, even though he was sitting 2 feet away from the speaker.

Raven through the whole ordeal simply remained in the room reading her book; though Robin had no idea how she could concentrate on the written words with all the noise.

By the time Starfire made her appearance, the noise had reached decibel levels that by rights should have knocked her back ten feet. But she stood there, listening to the yelling and loud music until she had finally had enough of the strife that seemed to permeate the room.

_"Friends should never behave like this! And especially on _Blorthog_! Do you wish to invite the _Rekmas_?"_

_"Gesundheit?" Starfire ignored Beastboy's comment._

_"On my planet, _Rekmas_ means The Drifting, the point at which close friends drift apart, and their friendship begins to die."_

Perhaps he should have listened more carefully to what Starfire said, but before he had a chance to say too much, the alarm rang and it was off to the museum to stop the burglary.

They arrived to find two soldiers encased in _ice_ of all things, and a man in a black costume about to steal the eternity clock, on of the most valuable artifacts in the Jump City Museum. The Titans waged an epic battle against this new villain, though they soon found that he was much more formidable than he seemed.

"_You cannot defeat Warp. I am from the future!"_

Finally, he had beaten the titans enough to give him the opportunity to open a portal that would take him one hundred years into the future. Starfire was the only one who had any hope of getting to him before he entered the portal, and with a vicious roar, she launched herself at him. Unfortunately, the impact sent both of them hurtling in the portal, which vanished in a flash of white light.

"Starfire!"

The first thing he could think of was that in all the excitement of the battle, he had never once tried to help her when she fell from his attack. Yes, he had been busy, but that shouldn't have stopped him, it never had before. Beast Boy broke the silence that permeated the entire museum now that the battle had reached an abrupt end.

"Um… Where did she go?"

Raven floated over to rest beside the green shape-shifter and nudged him not-so-gently with her elbow. Robin shook his head and instantly snapped into action.

"Cyborg, can you figure out where… when she is?"

The mechanical man frowned but held up his right arm to consult his built in instruments. After several minutes of muttered swears and buttons pressed in rage and frustration he finally bowed his head in sorrow.

"Well?"

"Man, I can't tell anything. It's like she's vanished." Robin hardened his gaze at that and shook his head.

"Titans, search the city. She could still be here!" And with that he ran out of the museum and leaped onto his R-cycle. As the other titans watched in astonishment, he gunned the engine and roared down the street, leaving the other titans standing in the museum, alone save for the company of the frozen police officers. Raven snapped out of her reverie first and immediately began using her powers to free the two frozen men.

"Cyborg, Beastboy, go, I'll join you in just a moment." Cyborg nodded and nudged his nearly catatonic green friend.

"C'mon BB, let's go."

Once the two were out of earshot Raven asked a soft-spoken question to herself.

"Where did you go?"

Three days of intense searching later, Robin growled in frustration.

"Urgh! Titans, where haven't we searched?"

"Dude, we've looked everywhere! She's gone." Robin slammed his fist on the computer console in front of him.

"NO! She has to be here! No one can travel through time!" Raven, her pace slightly paler than normal and lips tight spoke up.

"Robin, you haven't slept in three days. You need to rest. We all need to rest. Even if we do find her, we won't do Starfire any good in our condition." Robin appeared to be ready to protest when a huge yawn escaped his gaping mouth instead.

"Fine. Rest, but we start again at O six-hundred tomorrow!" he stormed out. The other male titans looked at Raven, Cyborg spoke first,

"You seem to be taking this well." Raven shook her head ever so slightly.

"I haven't been able to meditate in three days, her presence… calmed me, these days have been as difficult for me as for you, I however, cannot show it." Beastboy broke the uncomfortable silence that followed.

"Do you think she's okay? I mean, are we gonna find her?"

"I believe that wherever Starfire is is unreachable to us, but she is strong, she'll be alright. For now we must accept her loss and move on as best we can."

**End note: **I appologize for the length of this prologue, I hope to make the other chapter's longer, untill then, happy reading (and pressing blue buttons hint hint)


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** I would like to thank the acad… er… my reviewers!

**CrazyDeafGirl:** Thank you soooooo much. I'm glad you thought I did well. And thank you for your offer to help out with information. I'll probably only end up using what is known in the show, but I do know a lot of the comic backstory (though I have yet to pick up one of the comics 0.0; ) In any case, I'll certainly ask you for whatever help I may need. Thank you.

**Invader Johnny:** Yeah, I was trying to foreshadow a bit. Thank you for your review. I did check out your profile, but didn't see the story you were referring to. Could you perhaps E-mail it to me? The address is in my profile. I hope you enjoy this next installment!

**Neoinean:** Thank you very much. I'm anxious to see what happens too…

Now that that's settled, I'd like to thank everyone who read my story, but left only a hit number with their leaving, please know that I appreciate you checking out my work. From this point on, I will thanking people through direct replies, so you won't have to suffer through my babbling.

Chapter two:

Previously:

_"…We must accept her loss and move on as best we can."_

Year 1 month 3

"BB, where's the remote? Did you lose the damn thing again?" Beastboy sighed from where he stood at the small table in the kitchen area, looking for his tofu.

"Dude, I haven't touched it! Why don't you just build one into your arm?" He resumed his search by looking through the refrigerator, and what he found depressed him further. Blue mold had grown all throughout the appliance, making all their food nearly unrecognizable. He nearly called out for Starfire to blast the fungus away with starbolts, but stopped himself and sighed again.

"Hey Cy! Where's Raven?"

"In her room man. Like always."

And it was true; Raven had barely left her room, save for the occasional confrontation with crime, in the three months since Starfire's mysterious disappearance. She spent hours on end doing who knew what. Every so often she left her room, looking pale and drained, and brought some food from the kitchen into her room, where she would remain for another week.

Robin, after three weeks of relentless searching had finally decided to give up for the time being, but had set up a reward for anyone if they found the missing alien. So far, no one had stepped forward to offer any information, or even a body they claimed to be hers.

Cyborg had retreated into the garage beneath the tower, struggling for days to get one more horsepower out of the T-Car. New converters, a specially designed carburetor, and yet more rocket fuel, all of it went into the vehicle to make it fly across the pavement.

When not pampering his "baby" he was in the operation center of the tower, watching television, and often ended up watching World of Fungus, what had been Starfire's favorite show, when she was still with the Titans.

The one who it appeared had changed most drastically seemed to be Beastboy. No longer the ever jovial green elf-boy; he almost never made a failed attempt at a joke any more. In the wake of _her_ absence, Beastboy had taken to cleaning; the tower was spotless under Beastboy's newfound obsession. No more "blue-furry-food" had residence in the small refrigerator (except for the last remnants that he had yet to get off of the remote.); the clothing that littered the floor of Beastboy's room was now hung neatly in his closet. Cyborg worried that the fumes from all the cleaning supplies would fry the younger Titan's brain, but shook his head and went back to his simulation of the new engine he was designing for the T-Ship.

The Titans it seemed; had fallen.

TtTtTtTtTtTt

Inside the room that no self-respecting Titan would dare to enter under threat of death, Raven was meditating. Black energy crackled around the room as she stretched out her conscious mind, probing strands of time that were now visible in her trance-like state. Her brow furrowed as she attempted yet again to find the time-line of Starfire. Her soul-self blasted through the various threads of blue, green, and black. She concentrated instead on the oranges and yellows, looking for the color Starfire's aura had taken during the "switcheroo" situation with the Puppet King. Finding one that appeared to start far from earth, Raven nearly leapt for joy inside her mind. She followed it.

It ran all the way to earth, then around the planet. The older, more brown-orange part faded into the vibrant yellow that was Starfire's present essence, this aura led to what, in her mind, Raven knew as Titan's Tower, but in this realm of time alone, it was empty space. Raven followed the thread into the city, here black and gray shadows with no substance. It lead into a black building, and it was here that Raven saw where the line ended, a bright swirling vortex of white light. She looked around the other side; it did not exit the vortex in this timeline. Starfire was truly in the future.

Raven began to retreat to where she had entered this world of time, floating in nothingness towards the tower, taking the utmost care that she would not touch another beings timeline. Long moments passed and Raven found herself hovering over where her own time line lay: the blue thread with just a hint of demonic red in it, lying innocuously in mid air. If Raven were anyone else, she would have been elated at the uniqueness of this, but Raven knew that it only hinted at the impending doom her father would bring upon the world. She shuddered inside her mind and decided to not dwell on that right now. Her soul self floated down into her body and Raven opened her eyes as she came out of her trance.

She saw the walls of her room, so dark.

"Maybe I should open a window…"

TtTtTtTtTtTt

Robin was sitting at the Titan computer, looking for something, anything, that may be wrong in his beloved city. There was a minor robbery at a liquor store, but the police were already there, and there was no Meta-Human activity, so it did not fall under Titan jurisdiction. Today, as for the last three weeks, had been mostly silent. There had been an incident with an alien named Soto that seemed to think Beastboy was his pet, but that had been quickly put under control, despite a madcap romp throughout the city chasing the creature's _real_ pet. The report was already filed away in the basement, with the other closed cases.

To put it simply, Robin was bored. Without Starfire, life at the tower was lonelier than he had ever imagined. When she was there, he always had someone to talk to, someone who would listen if he ever had a problem, an in turn, he would listen to her questions about earth life. Robin smiled in remembrance of those times.

BEEEP BEEEP!

The Titan's alarm had gone off. Robin glanced at the screen to see just where the disturbance was. Apparently, there was a giant scorpion making its way to the borders of the city. His teammates quickly ran into the ops center, awaiting orders. Robin felt that there was someone missing, _Starfire_, he thought bitterly. He raised his gloved hand in the air and shouted with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

"Titans, GO!"

TtTtTtTtTtTt

They arrived at the lip of the gorge that ran along the outskirts of the city to find that there was indeed a giant scorpion reeking havoc down below. Indeed, the only thing that was shocking about the situation was that there was a petite girl running away from the mutant arachnid. Just as they were about to swoop, jump, fly, and teleport in to save the day the girl raised her arms and brought down a rock bridge that crushed the monster.

"She wasn't in trouble!" Cyborg almost shouted in excitement.

"She was leading it into a trap." Raven finished, her eyes shining with mild excitement from under her hood. Robin nodded.

"Question is…"

Before Robin could finish his sentence, Beastboy had jumped in.

"Who is she?"

To be continued.

**A.N.: **Once again, I apologize for the length of this chapter, but I felt that this was as good a place as any to leave you. I promise to try to make these longer. As you have probably noticed, I'm borrowing very heavily from the dialogue of other episodes, and that scenarios without much Starfire influence are being cut out. There is a method to the madness here, and foreshadowing abounds, you just have to look for it. Now that you have read: **Review!**

Rugsrat


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